by john | Dec 23, 2009 | Poems, Poetry, Writing
So I’m trying to write something, anything, every day, and damn if it isn’t hard to get back on that horse. So tonight I locked myself in my hotel room at the lovely Marriott Century Center in Atlanta and cranked out a couple of first drafts. And these are truly hot-off-the-presses drafts, finished just a few minutes ago. So give me a little feedback on them, and then in a little while I’ll probably yank them off here to maintain their “unpublished” status for submissions and tweak them a little bit.
Yeah, I’m travelling right before Christmas, but I get Thursday and Friday off, so it’s okay I guess. I’ll probably blow out of here a little early tomorrow and head north so as not to get trapped in Atlanta’s hellish traffic. I think I’ll download Episode 4 of the Gambling Tales Podcast to listen to on the road. If you haven’t heard it yet, get your ass over to the website or to iTunes and check it out. I think Special K and I are really starting to hit our stride, and we’re working on getting some more great guests for upcoming shows. This episode features poker author, online card room manager and all-around prince of a human being, Lee Jones.
In the meantime, here are a couple of new pieces I’m working on. And if you’re in Charlotte on January 23, I’ll be hosting another Writer’s Showcase at Story Slam on Central Avenue. I haven’t locked in the lineup yet, but it’ll definitely be me and Steve Stoekel of the Spongetones fame. I’ll let you know more details as they become available.
EDIT: Can’t get both of them to post right so I’ll toss the next one up in a separate post. I would enjoy feedback on both.
EDIT: All unpublished poems have been taken down until I get through submitting them to various magazines so they’ll maintain their unpublished status.
by john | Dec 22, 2009 | Real Life
So…I’m trying to buy a house. I have a house, and I have no plans to move, and yes, I am trying to buy another house. My father’s house. The house I grew up in. My father has been having money troubles for the past several years, and hasn’t dug himself out even after declaring bankruptcy last year. He’s currently facing foreclosure because he can’t make his mortgage payments, and even after going through all the loan modification channels at Chase, they actually had the gall to come back with an offer of a interest-only mortgage that actually had a higher interest rate than the note he was trying to get modified! Now if he can’t make the payments on a 9.25% mortgage, why would a company even offer a 9.5% mortgage?
So I’ve started the process to try and buy my dad’s house. It’s not the perfect answer for me, not right now, but with a couple of tweaks to our household spending we can make the nut. Dad leased a portion of the land to the county five years ago to build an emergency communications tower on, and that provides him with $600/month in payments. If I can get a note between and 5-6%, which should be doable, I’ll only have to come up with about $400/month to bridge the gap between what the tower provides and what the mortgage will be each month. And it’s hard to turn down an opportunity to buy a 2200 sq. ft. house on 9 acres for $170K. The tower deal makes the mortgage reachable, and the payment from the county increases incrementally over time, so there will come a time about halfway through the life of the mortgage that the property will actually generate more revenue each month than it costs. So long-term it makes sense. And it lets my dad keep the house he built when he married my mother, so that’s pretty important to me, too. So there might be a few less trips to Vegas in my immediate future, but I’ve got a few things floating out there that make this only a stretch for the first few months of the year, after which I think we’ll be in pretty good shape.
by john | Dec 18, 2009 | Poetry, Writing
You like that? I got all artsy and French in the title. Good, huh? You can just see me sitting in a cafe wearing a beret smoking cloves, right? Ew. Don’t visualize. And fuck the French, cheese-eating surrender monkeys.
Okay, got that outta my system anyway. So last night was the second night of the All Arts Market at the Neighborhood Theatre, and it was significantly better than Day 1. Not only did I get my spot moved from the absolute ass-end of the frigid hallway into a room with other people, there were people buying things, too. I sold one book all night on Wednesday, and by the end of the night last night I’d sold eight books and bartered four more with other artisans. I traded books with Martique, another local writer and artist, and traded a book to my neighbor Desta (website coming live soon) for a great photo of a patina blue hippo, and swapped a book for some hand-painted bookmarks by another chick who was in the same room selling stuff. Of course then I promptly lost most of the business cards from the people who I traded stuff with, because I was woefully unprepared for self-promotion at this event.
You’d think I’d be better than that, after years of promoting my theatre company, Barbizon and myself as a poker writer, but I didn’t even have a tablecloth (that was bartered for another book) much less business cards. I did at least have pens and books, and some cash to make change for folks, so I wasn’t a complete waste of space. But if I’m going to sell books at these arts shows, I’m gonna need to step up my game a little. I enjoyed it, I like talking to people about poetry and about writing, but I’m also thinking that maybe the format of RTF isn’t exactly right for sales. Because it’s a collection of stories and poetry it makes it harder to get people to wrap their heads around the book. When I opened a copy to a couple of poems and encouraged people to read a poem or two, they got a handle on things, but when I just left it laying there closed people were less willing to pick up a copy and leaf through. I guess they didn’t wanna crack the spine and make it unsellable or whatever. So I’ll get a tablecloth and some business cards, and the next book I publish will be either all poetry or all stories (or Choices, it’s not dead I promise).
I also met a woman from the local storyteller’s guild, which meets every month at a Barnes & Noble, so I’ll check them out. I owe her that much – she bought a book. Still time to get your orders in for Christmas – click the button on the sidebar to order! (I’m re-learning the art of shameless self-promotion)
by john | Dec 17, 2009 | Poetry, Writing
So this whole self-publishing thing is a bit of a grind. To date I’ve made back about 1/3 of what I spent in publishing the book, which isn’t terrible for a first-time endeavor, and it’s not like it cost me very much cash to begin with. Last night I went to the All Arts Market in the arts district here in town, set up a table and sat there for four hours. To sell one book. That was a little brutal. But I knew when I printed 100 copies that most of them were going to go to friends and family for Christmas (so if you’re related to me and reading this, at least have the grace to feign surprise). It’s not like anybody makes any real money writng and publishing poetry, but it should at least be able to be a break-even proposition. I plan to approach local colleges about doing appearances and readings there, so that’s another avenue to sell a few copies.
It’s not really about the money, it’s more about changing the way people view poetry. One of the greatest compliments I got this past weekend was from DrChako, who told me that he’d never really cared for poetry, but that my stuff made a connection with him. That’s what it’s about for me, making connections and telling good stories. Maybe I do it with fewer words and a different format than most writers, but it’s the same thing – storytelling. So I want to push the boundaries of what poetry is supposed to be, because I don’t think very many people have it right. I dunno, maybe I’m way off base and everybody is writing accessible, clear-minded stuff nowadays, but I don’t think so. I think there’s a lot of purposefully obscure drivel out there that drives people away from the form, and somebody needs to show people that there can be other accessible poetry that isn’t slam poetry. It’s not to take away from the slam poets, but it’s not what I do, and it’s not the only game out there.
So that’s all I want to do – change an entire societal view on poetry and poets. We’re not ALL effete beret-wearing omnisexuals who smoke cloves and drink lattes. At least not every day:).
And I’m trying to make a concerted effort to write a little here every day. That will likely blow up in a matter of days, but for now, we’ll keep it rolling.
by john | Dec 16, 2009 | Poetry, Writing
Well, on the bright side, it wasn’t THAT phone call that woke me up this morning. Those of you with aging parents knows the one I mean. Those of you with kids in their teens know it, too. When my dad showed up on the caller ID, I knew something had happened to my mom. Dad knows better than to call me at 7AM, after all. I was right. Mom had fallen and they were loading her onto an ambulance. She didn’t seem to have broken anything this time, just a nasty gash on her head, but it was a spectacular way to start my day, a day that had promised to be truly lovely (insert sarcastic tone here) from the end of yesterday.
I like my job, really I do. It pays me well, it’s pretty enjoyable, and I like the folks I work for and with. But some days just outright suck, and yesterday was one of them. A client with more stroke than sense wants to get a studio built in three weeks, and because they’re connected to enough important people, I can’t just laugh at them like I usually would. I have to employ tact and restraint, words not typically associated with yours truly. And I want to get the order. I’d like to close out the year with another one in the “W” column, even though it’s a job that I’d usually throw under the bus because of the stupid timeline. So I’ve got that to look forward to for the rest of the week.
One interesting note – I’ll be at the Arts Market at the Neighborhood Theatre for the next two nights peddling my book. They only wanted $15 for a table for two nights, so I decided to take a shot. Hopefully I can sell more than two books and show a profit! I’m trying to figure out this whole self-publishing/self-promotional author thing, but I’m starting to pick up a few things. For example, I’ve stopped posting new poetry here because a lot of magazines and contests won’t accept submissions that have been previously published anywhere, including blogs. And since magazines and contests are kinda key to getting someone ELSE to pay for publishing my next book, that’s pretty important. I’ll still put stuff up here from time to time, and you can always come out to one of my readings to check out what I’ve been working on. But in the meantime I’ve gotta go get a demo console set up for a customer, so I’ll check back in later.
